It was nearly nine by the time I reached Burnett Road and knocked on the door of James’ office.
“Oh good,” McKinnon said when I opened the door. “It’s you, Conall. I wasn’t sure you’d be in this early. You know DI Philips, of course?”
I did, although I’d only spoken to the man a couple of times. He’d been supervising my team for me, for the second time, during my week off in early January. That little break in Avoriaz seemed like a lifetime ago already.
DI Philips was a fair haired, brown eyed fellow a year and a half older than I was, which meant he’d turn thirty five in May. I hadn’t really taken to him, although I had no reason to dislike him either. He seemed to be good at his job but nothing exceptional. I’d got the impression that he had an undeservedly high opinion of his own professional capabilities. A slender five foot nine, I suppose he was conventionally handsome by most people’s standards. He had a pleasant enough face. To be fair, I think he’d just rubbed me up the wrong way by making a few ‘helpful suggestions’ about some ideas he’d had that could ‘really bring my team along.’ All I’d gathered from that little conversation was that Philips had no idea how to get the best out of them and seemed totally oblivious to the fact that they hadn’t appreciated his efforts to make ‘a few little changes’ to the way I liked things done.
“Of course,” I said. “Hello again, Simon.”
He stood up to shake my hand. “Good morning, Sir. I’d like to congratulate you on your fine work last night.”
“Please don’t. That was all my cousin’s doing, and neither of us view last night’s events as any cause for congratulation. Quite the contrary in fact.”
“Aye.” James gestured for us both to sit down. “That’s twice the crazy bastard has got away with murder, let’s not give him the opportunity to go for a third.”
“The cars?” I asked, jumping straight to business with the one lead we may already have made some progress with. “Has anyone managed to interview the owners yet?”
“Only by phone. They’re both on holiday with their families, one in the States and the other in Italy. They were both very surprised to hear the cars weren’t safely tucked away in their garages.” Stolen then, as I’d expected them to be. James nodded glumly at my expression. “He’s not giving himself away that easily. Let’s just hope Davie and his boys can get us something useful there. From the footage Shay sent over, I’d say our man didn’t spend any time trying to clean them up before he abandoned them. We could have done without the gloves though.”
“What about the owners’ neighbours?”
“I’ve got people heading out to talk to them now. But I’ve looked at those addresses on a map and they’re both detached places, well screened from nearby houses. If he went at night, the odds that anyone noticed anything are low.”
I found myself wondering how our suspect had known the families were both away.
“Most people book their holidays online these days…” I said, thinking aloud. “The airport? He wouldn’t necessarily even need to work there.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” James agreed. “He’d just need to find a way to get talking to people or hear and see enough to tell him what he needed.”
“And that’s if he doesn’t have a way to gather all the information he needs without leaving home.” I didn’t like that thought at all but we couldn’t rule it out. Just because we thought our killer was psychotic didn’t mean he always had been or that he didn’t possess some unexpected skills in any number of possible fields. Then there was the phone cloning system Shay had brought to my attention last May. That would be an easy way to pick up someone’s information at an airport.
“Travel agents and taxi companies?” Philips suggested hesitantly.
“We’ll have to check those too,” I told him agreeably. It wouldn’t do to mention that those had been too obvious to be worth mentioning. James merely grunted.
“Can I leave all that with you, Conall?” he asked. Meaning ‘will Shay look into all of that for us?’
“Of course. Can you make sure I’m sent the transcripts for those phone calls as soon as possible? Were they asked how they travelled to the airport? Or if they had more than one car? Or how they booked their holidays?”
“Philips?” McKinnon asked, turning his attention to the man at my side.
“No, Sir, they weren’t. We know when they left and when they’re due to return but we don’t have those details yet. I’ll have them called back.”
“Aye, do. Anything else you want from them, Conall?”
“Well, it wouldn’t hurt to ask if anyone engaged them in conversation at the airport or seemed to be hanging around them suspiciously. Descriptions would be helpful if they did. What else do you want my team working on?”
“Door to door enquiries, this morning, if you don’t mind a bit of grunt work. That car was only out of sight for a few minutes, which didn’t give our suspect time to get far on foot. We need to check every building within five hundred metres of where he left the car, to be safe. If he didn’t go into the cemetery, that’s about as far as he could have gone before the drone would have spotted him.”
“That sounds about right, and the Bught Park Pitches cut a whole quadrant off the southeast end of that patch. He’d have been totally exposed out there if he’d gone that way. We should be able to cover that many houses between us.” About eighty or so each, at a rough guess, if we split into three teams. There was something else I’d wanted to ask about while I was here though. “Do you have
